Any descendants of Hyrum Smith? I seem to remember reading in Frank Cannon's book that Joseph F. Smith thought he had some sort of divine right to be the prophet. He had a bunch of wives and many children.

I don't know who is what any more, but Lori C's topic on Joseph handing it over to Hyrum made me wonder.

I think Ballard is somehow descended from Joseph Smith himself.

Joseph Fielding McConkie, while not a GA, was an influential author. He was a descendant of Hyrum Smith through his mother, the daughter of Joseph Fielding Smith. I wonder if there's any fruit left on that particular branch?

Ida Smith was a decendant of Hyrum Smith. She was conned into believing a yet another con man.

Google Search "Ida Smith tombstone" for a laugh.

The whole sealed portion of the Book of Mormon crap.

Poor Ida Smith. She really swallowed that hook, line, and sinker. I had never heard of that whole saga until last month when I came across it. I was like, "sealed portion? There was a sealed portion?"

It sounds like a lot of members were kind of waiting for that to be revealed someday, but I totally missed that.

Yeah I feel bad for her. I knew about the sealed portion and was looking forward to it being translated as well. I always heard that we are not ready for it yet, but when we are God will bring the gold plates back down and have the current church president tranlate them. Never gonna happen.

I don't think Ida is dead but I wonder if she has run across the mormonessays.org webpage or pays attention to FoxNews / NY times / Drudge.

She seems to be the type that already knows about the dirty laundry, believes the bretheren are out of touch, and still believes in Joseph Smith enough to believe in Christopher. How moronic is it to think that this guy is the re-incarnated Hyrum Smith...hehehe. She's been mindfucked for a very long time and possilby literally not "taken care of" either for some time. She never married. So who knows if in that 80+ years she ever fooled around.

M.Russell Ballard is the great great grandson of Hyrum Smith.

Yes, I looked it up. Very interesting. Thank you.

I forgot that Joseph Smith, in spite of all his conjugal activities, failed to raise up any seed unto the Lord.

I guess horny Joe never was good at "cum cum ye saints" with the other woman in the creation process. I tend to think a lot of these babies miscarried or died off quickly. People didn't have a lot of money or the means and so many people died off with no real records. Lots of home births that were never recorded.

From the interview of William Law, March 30, 1887: http://www.mrm.org/law-interview

"Did you ever hear of abortion being practiced in Nauvoo?"

"Yes. There was some talk about Joseph getting no issue from all the women he had intercourse with. Dr. Foster spoke to me about the fact. But I don't remember what was told about abortion. If I heard things of the kind, I didn't believe in them at that time. Joseph was very free in his talk about his women. He told me one day of a certain girl and remarked, that she had given him more pleasure than any girl he had ever enjoyed. I told him it was horrible to talk like this."

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Marinda_Bates_Pratt#Allegation_of_abortions

Makes me think of the mess with that other child-raping despotic polygamous prophet, Mohammed, and his succession. Some of his generals decided they wanted to be the successors, others thought it should go through Mohammed's blood line. Hence, the whole Sunni/Shiite conflict, each one killing and blowing up the other.

Something to remember about cults: the founders rarely provide for their own succession, and they often split into various factions. Also, with few exceptions, their progeny are rarely up for the task, even when officially anointed and appointed.